


I must have died alone, a long, long time ago

by cutebutpsyco



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cloakie ships it, Happy Ending, Harley Keener is the Iron Lad, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship, Stephen Strange takes care of Tony, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the cloak is a matchmaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 02:30:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17215352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutebutpsyco/pseuds/cutebutpsyco
Summary: MARVEL HOLIDAY SWAP||Their relationship was weird at best. It wasn’t like someone could expect for something different either, but Stark was one of the few people about whom Stephen cared. In his weird way, not showing it even in the slightest, but he did.





	I must have died alone, a long, long time ago

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Golden_Asp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golden_Asp/gifts).



> Ok, first of all, I'm extremely happy and anxious about writing this for one of my favourite authors, and I hope this won't be as bad as I think it is. I wrote this out of pure inspiration with zero planning, so I really, really hope it doesn't suck. 
> 
> Then, in this AU, Harley is the Iron Lad, though I know nothing about comics and the few things about this character I gathered come from a friend of mine who doesn't read the comics either, anyway I just headcanon Tony to give suits to everyone he cares about, and Harley being smart enough to personalize his own and become a new superhero. Just pretend this has a sense, ok? 
> 
> Tagged as Graphic Description of Violence because I describe those in Tony's flashback during his PTSD episode (there's also a part that can be interpreted as non-con at some point). It's not so described, but I prefer to write this in the warnings. 
> 
> As always, nothing belongs to me. Unbetad.  
> Title from "The Man Who Sold the World" by Nirvana.

It was supposed to be an easy mission. It wasn’t anything that would have anticipated that, no reason to believe that the asset could reveal himself more dangerous than what had been planned.  
Some fugitives HYDRA agents that were trying to steal Hank Pym’s technology. Stephen knew that the only reason why Tony suggested for the New Avengers to intervene was that Hope asked him. 

Which meant, though, that Tony shouldn’t even go on the field. He wasn’t supposed to, and most certainly he did have any idea of what the real threat was. Probably no-one could guess it, and it was clear that Stark would have never sent both his kids into that fucking mess if he’d known. 

So, when things went down, the only thing he could do was let the nanites to cover his body and flight the entire distance toward the HYDRA base. Instead of calling for help, Stephen had to add. It was Peter who called him, the moment the threat had been contained. The kid sounded terribly worried, and Strange couldn’t blame him the moment he succeeded in understanding what he was saying. 

Stephen tried to stay calm because it was the best thing to do in that moment. He needed to tranquilise Peter and make sure that he was alright before worrying for his friend’s life. That was the kind of situation in which his medical training proved himself to be valid for his superhero life as well. He could stay calm, look at the things from different points of view, decide how to contain damages. It was the same thing he did on Titan when he gave up to the Time Stone. Saving Tony was the only way to save the universe. This was the only reason why he changed his mind. Despite everything, he would make it over and over again. 

“Kiddo,” He said, and Stephen could feel Peter’s breath too much accelerate for him to liking it. The doctor could recognize the principle of a panic attack. “I need you to breathe and focus on my voice, can you do it?”

It took a couple of forcing to breathe for Peter to answer: “Yeah, I think but - Mr Stark, he… he…”

“Peter, I’m on my way to reach you, I’ll be there in a couple of seconds,” He repeated, motioning his hand to open a portal and reaching the location KAREN was projecting on the screen of his computer in the Sanctum. Stephen found himself asking since when he could access Peter’s AI. Then decided to store that question along with the others he would have asked Tony, once he’d rescue him. After the entire Thanos ordeal, Stephen and Peter grew closer, mostly because the Sorcerer helped the Spiderling through their staying in the Soul Dimension and what came after. What Stephen couldn’t know was that, by now, Peter considered him as a second mentor, and that he told exactly those same words to Stark. “I’ll help him, ok? I need you to tell me what happened, though.”

It wasn’t difficult to take a guess, but let the kid speak was the only way to check if he was alright. Stephen walked through the shining portal just to find himself facing a definitely panicking Peter, clearly suffocating in his own mask. The moment the kid saw the Sorcerer he ran to him. “The… The others went… Chasing for the running agents…” Peter started to say. “But I couldn’t… Him… The building…” 

Peter was holding Stephen’s arm, squeezing it with all his strength, which was definitely more than what Stephen could bear; the man, though, wasn’t going to tell that to Peter now. The Sorcerer let him magic flew to his hands, barely relieving the pain from them. “Pete,” He whispered. “Take the mask off. Nobody will see you there.”

Peter nodded against Stephen’s robes and it was clear that the fresh air of New York against his skin was helping. His breath became steadier, and his hold on Stephen’s arm loosened. “I’m… sorry.”

“It’s fine, you are fine, that’s what matters,” Stephen flashed the kid with one of his secret smiles. It was the one he reserved for the people he cared about and not the stretched ones that he gave to everyone else. He supposed that no more than a minute had passed since he appeared in the building proximity. It meant that whatever happened to Tony, did happen no more than twenty minutes before. Still too much, if the man was badly injured. “I need you to tell me where’s Tony, can you?”

“They had alien weapons and Mr Stark just… appeared out of nowhere and some of the agents were shooting at Harley and he flew between him and the bad guy, then the building collapsed. Harley went with the others to look for the fugitive ones but I couldn’t… I can’t…”

Stephen nodded, his steel-blue eyes running on the collapsed building not so far from where they were. There were standing debris and the last thing Stephen wanted to imagine was his friend trapped under those. Strange nodded, knowing that he looked worried as much as Peter probably was, while he was trying to keep his shaking under control. He needed to enter the building and hoping not to move anything that could hurt Tony. If he was still - no, Stephen wasn’t going to think about that eventuality. Tony’s suit would be strong enough to keep him safe for some minutes if it came to that. 

Their relationship was weird at best. It wasn’t like someone could expect for something different either, but Stark was one of the few people about whom Stephen cared. In his weird way, not showing it even in the slightest, but he did. 

“Ok, I’m going to portal inside the building and bring Stark out, call the others and tell them to meet us in the Compound,” He said, practically, opening a portal for Peter to walk thought and closing it the moment the kid disappeared. A moment later, Stephen was in a totally rescue mode and another portal opened in front of him.

The space inside the collapsed building was high enough for a human being to walk on his hands and knees — and, seriously, Stephen could have thought about a snarky remark of Stark being perfectly comfortable standing on his feet if he wasn’t so worried — with the back brushing against the fallen ceiling, though in other points it was so narrow that air could barely enter. 

Stephen tried to shift to be able to let the Cloak to free itself from his shoulders and moving one of his trembling hands in a complicated movement. A golden sparkle left his fingers starting to flashing back and forward in the small space. “Follow it,” Strange told to his relic, trying to do the same without causing more damages to the building structure. Thinking about it twice, it wasn’t his best idea ever. Every inch Stephen succeeded in gaining in his terrible slow moving could have moved something that could have clashed against Tony and himself. Which was also the reason why he didn’t dare to call for Stark name. 

He had no idea how long it took for him to reach the point where both the Cloak and his own spell were waiting for him, though it looked like his deepest fear became real. His view was blocked by debris and while from where he was he could stand on his feet, it was clear that under the weight of the fallen rubbles and beams nobody could survive longer than a couple of minutes. 

“Is he there?” He asked, to nobody in particular, hating how his voice sounded defeated. The only thing in which he dared to hope was that Stark’s suit was strong enough to endure how long was needed to free him. The Cloak nodded in the weird way it had and Stephen tried to look through what was in front of him.

“Stark,” He called. “Goddam, of course you couldn’t get trapped in some island on the Caribbean Sea, it must be in the middle of a fucking collapsed building.”

No answer from the other side of the wall, fuck, Stephen had hoped that irony could help him in locate the man. Stephen looked at his surroundings, not linking at all that he saw: there was nothing which could help him, which meant he had to open his way through with magic, hoping not to hit something that would result with the entire building falling on them. Using his hands to free the debris was definitely not an option. 

“Ok,” He said, this time to the Cloak. “I move things, and you keep them for turning us into human jam.”

“Boss, boss,” Friday’s voice was rushed, worried, in total panic waiting for an answer that never came. She knew that the Boss was alive because she could detect his heart beat. Too fast and too weak for her to liking it, but it was there and it had never been as strong as it was when Jarvis took care of him. “Boss, I feel another heat source.”

Tony’s eyes ran from one corner of the HUB to the other, and everything he could see was dark. Dark and dust, and something flashing in the background. Everything he could feel was the sensation of coldness, despite a burning sun and the sand against his skin. 

He could feel his chest paining, every fastened breathe a struggle, every time air brushed against his trachea was dry, horrible, he couldn’t breathe because of the water, people were pushing his head under a cold surface and then up against in the cold and humid air. Walls were falling on him, squeezing him in a narrowing cave. And someone was approaching. 

Blue and orange were flashing in front of him, the image of a car battery to be protected from water, the explosion, grey and orange, and loud, and someone calling his name. A hood on his face and a hand between his hair, pushing, pulling, forcing him on his knees. Questions that he couldn’t hear over the buzzing in his ears and the dark. Tony just wanted to run away from there, but he knew he couldn’t. And he had no idea of why. 

Faces started to flash in front of him; Stane, towering over him, the Arc Reactor in his hand; Rogers and his shield hitting his chest over and over again; Thanos, stabbing him. Everything was the same, in front of his eyes, everything was blue and orange, everything smelled of dust and sand, everything was closing to him, everything made breathing harder and harder. 

“Tony…?” Was it real or was another face asking for answers and smashing his face down, trying to obtain some answer which Tony couldn’t provide, not now, not when he couldn’t escape, not when he knew he would have died in that cave. “Tony!” Were those strong arms lifting his from the floor? Was that Rhodey, shaking and hugging him, and telling him “next time you ride with me”? Did it ever happened? Maybe it was just a sweet dream, before drifting off in the middle of nowhere, Afghanistan. “Tony, I need you to breathe with me, can you do that?”

No, yes, he didn’t know. Everything was black again in front of his eyes, and he couldn’t see. Then something orange, and again Tony’s breathe fastened. The chest against his own started to move more evidently, and Stark understood that whoever the person who was holding him was, was trying to help him to breath. It took some seconds for him to manage to actually feel his heart calming in his chest. 

“Tony,” Again, but this time was a soft whisper. Only then Tony realized he was holding something in his hands, so tight that it hurt. “You’re all right. You are at the Compound.”

That was enough for him to move slightly back from the other person, not letting go their clothes. The light was dim, and Stark guessed that it was thanks to Friday who knew far too well how to behave when Tony was like that, scared, broken, barely keeping it together. 

What he didn’t expect for, though, was Stephen Strange being the person with him. The Sorcerer was looking at the genius with a tentative smile that didn’t lightened his eyes and despite Tony not being a fan of proximity, he had to admit that the other man’s body warm was comforting. “Hello,” He said, trying to look fine, not to look as someone in dire need of assistance.

“Hi,” Stephen answered to him, moving away from the bed where was seated a moment before - probably because of Tony’s grip on his robes -. Tony didn’t like the sensation of coldness that immediately rose in his body and had to fight against every impulse that was screaming for him to ask to Strange to stay. He swallowed that, he couldn’t do that to his pride, he couldn’t show himself weak, not in front of Strange out of everyone else. 

Only in that moment, his brain seemed to register a sting pain in the right part of his chest, close to his shoulder. Tony didn’t dare to look at it. It wasn’t the first time he felt something like that. It happened over and over again, in his childhood and in his adult age as well, at the point that he could recognize the pain without second guessing: broken ribs. “What happened?”

“You could have called someone, when you figured out they had alien weapons,” Strange answered, and it required the beat of his eyes for the genius to understand what he was speaking about. 

The mission, the HYDRA agents, Pym’s technology, Hope, the kids. “Peter and Harley?”

“Peter called me when the building collapsed on you, Harley went with the others chasing for the fugitives, they are fine,” Differently from someone else. Thought that went unsaid. “And Bruce called Carol, they’ll be back soon for debriefing.” 

Tony nodded, trying to go back on his feet. The only result was that he had to hide the pained expression that was clearly crossing his face. “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” 

“Copy that, Merlin,” Tony said, and he really wanted to say something to make the man walk away so that he could suffer by his own but he was still holding the sleeve of Stephen’s robes and his left hand seemed to be on the opinion of not letting the man go. “I suppose I should thank you, though, you know, for being there, alive and breathing.”

And that, Tony was half sure, was the wrong thing to say because Stephen’s expression became evermore serious. “I know you are not so good with the sharing thing, I’m not either,” The doctor said. “So I won’t ask you what happened in there, but if you want to…”

“It was Afghanistan all over again,” Tony didn’t even know why he was telling Strange the truth. He owned nothing to the man, that saving today just made up for Titan, probably, but it had always been easy, for him, to speak with the Sorcerer. Maybe because Stephen could understand him better than everyone else. Even better than Bruce, while Banner stood in a very high Tony-Stark-Comprehension position in his rank. Stephen nodded, and a shaking hand was on Tony’s arm. “The dust, the narrow space… I thought I was over it, after Thanos and New York.”

And after that, telling him everything, to Tony seemed the easiest thing in the world. He had no idea how long they both stayed there, speaking about their own past lives like they never did before, speaking about theeir nightmares and the monsters that hide behind the masks they were used to wear. They had been friends, after Tony reversed the Snap, though when, finally, Tony felt asleep, he knew Stephen better than every other person he called teammate in the past ten years or so. Tony was more asleep than awake when he turned his whiskey brown eyes at the man and asked him: “Can you stay?”

The last thing Tony dared to hope for was seeing Stephen nod and take his place on one of the armchairs in Tony’s room without lifting his hand from the genius’s arm.

Stephen had no idea of when he felt asleep too. The only thing he was sure about, though, was that every single bone and juncture in his body was hurting and asking for him to change his position. His steel-blue eyes opened on a dim lighted room with pristine white walls and icy and coal greys furniture. He remembered of that room, of course. He just couldn’t place in his mind the moment he dozed off. And definitely he couldn’t remember when the Cloak wrapped itself around his hand, still on Stark’s arm, wrapping in the movement also the shorter man. Though, apparently, that happened. 

The previous day had been an actual mess and while Stephen knew that he was being illusional, he couldn’t forget the way in which Tony pleaded him to stay. He shook his head, trying to remember to himself that that was a normal reaction to the stress and the aftermath of Tony’s PTSD episode. It meant nothing if not that the man had no-one to speak with, which was sad, considering what he did both for the world and for his team. 

Whatever feeling Stephen could have developed for him with the time, he should silence that and being a friend for the man.  
And that was what the Sorcerer was repeating over and over in his mind, when he decided to move from the uncomfortable armchair to stretch his body. (And ok, maybe Peter was right and he was becoming old, but didn't need to say it out loud, kid!)

Once he was standing, though, he felt Tony’s loose grip on his hand tightened and the man opened his eyes, looking at him with a sloppy and tired smile and whatever he was repeating to himself went straight on to fuck off. 

“You stayed,” Tony whispered, and he sounded almost surprised. 

“Yeah, the Cloak didn’t want to let you go,” Stephen said, feeling the lie burn the back of his throat while the Cloak slapped his arm, not happy at all to take the blame for its stupid human. “And you asked me to.” He decided to add, just to quiet the thing. 

Tony’s smile became even more bright, as if it was possible. And Stephen could see how different it was from his PR smile. If that had a lot of people falling for the billionaire, Stephen couldn’t imagine what the real one could do. His own heart missing a beat in front of the sight. Tony was attractive, Strange wasn’t going to deny that, thought when he smiled like that, his entire face lighted up and he became more than handsome.  
Stephen wasn’t one to fall for people’s appearances. He fell for Tony’s brain, since the first moment. But this didn’t mean that he was blind. 

“I like how this pretty carpet thinks,” He said, trying to turn to face the Sorcerer. The movement clearly caused pain in Tony, until the Cloak lifted him and helped the movement. Stephen stared, surprised by the fact that his relic didn’t protested at Tony’s nickname but, again, the engineer’s voice brought him back to the now and then: “You look like someone who could do with a couple of hours of sleep in a real bed. Want to join?” 

The Sorcerer knew that his jaw dropped at Tony’s question while the Cloak all but dragged him on the bed, paying attention not to hurt Stark in the process. A moment later, Stephen was laying on the genius’s bed, their faces terrifically close. “I needed to be almost crushed by a building to have you in my bed?” 

“What…?” Stephen looked at him, without bothering to move back from Tony’s warm body, the Cloak now wrapping both of them. 

“Are you really so oblivious?” Tony asked, and he knew the glance in his eyes was better than every other answer that Stephen could think about. Apparently, yes, he was so oblivious. But if the consequence was to hear Tony’s laugh, then he was happy to never notice whatever the other man meant with that sentence. “God, I want to kiss you.”

“If you do it, I’m not going to stop you.” A moment later, Tony’s lips were pushed against Stephen’s. 

“It’s the first night I don’t have nightmares in ass long time,” Tony whispered, against Stephen’s lips, once they divided. “You should stay with me more.”

“I’m not planning to go anywhere.” The doctor answered, sealing with another kiss his promise.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are rewarded with my undying love.
> 
> do you want to say hi? do you have some idea and/or prompt to shoot at me? [find me on tumblr](https://ironstrange-is-the-endgame.tumblr.com/)


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